Increasingly consumers are conducting financial transactions through Self-Service Terminals (SSTs) without the assistance of a teller or clerk. In fact, in many cases these transactions are conducted without any individual, other than a consumer, in the vicinity of the SSTs; other than, perhaps, a security camera integrated into the SSTs or in proximity to the SSTs. However, there are times when a consumer may prefer or feel a need to speak directly to a teller or clerk. Additionally, entities providing service via SSTs may desire to provide consumers an option for human interaction.
Interactive SSTs, such as the NCR Interactive Teller available from NCR Corporation of Duluth, Ga., provide multimedia, human-interactive session capabilities for such purposes. Through such interactive SSTs, consumers are able to communicate with service representatives via video and audio exchanged between an SST and a service representative computing device. However, the service representative may be located virtually anywhere and may speak with an accent, may speak very quickly, or may speak a language not understood by the SST consumer. Additionally, an environment within which the SST is located may be noisy, making it difficult for the SST consumer to hear audio coming from a speaker or telephone-like handset of the SST. Further, the SST consumer may be hard of hearing. These and similar audio-related issues confound full utility realization of such interactive SSTs by all consumers.